what are your views on the IRA

Rachel and I have recently returning from visiting my family in Northern Ireland. And the question arose while I was at a pub in Belfast with my cousin and a few republican friends of his if I had any thoughts of moving to NI and working with them. Now I have thought of it but decided not to for the reason I am about to state my family on my fathers side has close ties to the IRA from the past and present and while I support their cause (unified Ireland) I don't want to get involved with it any deeper than I already am. So I know a couple of sharenators aren't fond of the IRA but I just wanted to know what the other members from the UK think of them?

i gave up on the deadliest warrior when they compared a stiletto knife to a bowie knife. Then the stiletto won...that show can be crap at times. my other favorite was a tommy gun vs a pineapple grenade. i swear the producers of the show think we are all as ignorant as they are.

I won't claim to be an expert as I'm not 100% sure the circumstances behind the conflict.
I can understand there wanting to be a unified Ireland, however, I do not agree with their methods. Terrorism is terrorism at the end of the day, and killing innocent people is not the way to get your point across, no matter how much you don't like them.
At the end of the day, N.Ireland is part of the UK, and they gotta deal with that, same as Scotland and Wales. Don't like it, create an opposition political party which will give the people the option to break away from the UK, and see how well it works out, might turn out it's just the minority who don't want to be part of the UK anymore.

I agree with you that terrorism wasn't the way to go. The only thing I don't agree with is NI being part of the UK, Scotland and wales I can deal with those are part of the mainland, but I see NI that same way as India separate places taken through imperialism which has been a very bad habit of the UK along with other European nations up until recently.
The troop withdraw has decreased the violence substantially though, but the only way that the UK can stop the hostilities of between the IRA and the UK is to relinquish control of NI and maintain close ties with the unifying republic. Things could be worked out so that citizens of the UK can remain in Ireland and still maintain their citizenship to the UK, but it is all a matter of giving up control.

Well like I said, I don't know the full ins and outs of the conflict.
In an ideal world, there wouldn't be this kind of trouble and there would be an easy solution and everyone would agree on whether N.Ireland should be part of the UK or not... Like I said, I can understand some people in Ireland wanting a unified republic, but until someone gives in, I'm afraid this is a stalemate... What is sad is that violence seems to be picking up again and that's not necessary...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the conflict stem from religious issues too? (Catholics VS Protestants?) Either way, I don't see the big deal about NI being part of the UK. Alaska is part of the USA but you don't see Canadians bombing the US because of it.

the difference between Alaska and NI is that Alaska was bought and NI wasn't. But the reasons why religion was an issue at first was that most loyalists were Protestant while most republican/nationalists were Catholic it isn't much of an issue except during the orange march (or parade I forget the last part).

to be honest, i'm the wrong generation to ask as i've never experienced any of the IRA's doings but i can understand their want for a unified Ireland and i'm not too fussed about there being one but their methods to get their point across is just plain wrong and we're not going to give up northern ireland any time soon